Friday, May 09, 2008

An unsuitable insult

I got into a little tiff in the comments area the other day with yet another reader who dismissed Barack Obama as an "empty suit."

The insult struck me as completely over-the-top -- so patronizing
and dismissive of an obviously intelligent, well-educated man, no
matter what you think of his politics, that it made me seriously
challenge what was in the heart of the person who hurled it.

I suppose there's nothing new or one-sided about over-the-top
insults in politics. Democrats called Ronald Reagan a dunce and have
called George W. Bush retarded and compared him to a trained chimp.
There's also nothing new about referring to someone you don't respect
as an "empty suit." Every major candidate in this race has endured this
taunt from online critics (Hillary Clinton gets "empty pantsuit" as well.)

I understand frustration and anger, but let's be honest -- no one
who is actually vapid, dumb or ineffectual makes it to that level in
American politics, and saying so suggests a childlike weakness in one's
own position -- a milder version of comparing a politician you don't
like to the mentally defective character Chance the Gardener or,
extremely, to Hitler.

What does "empty suit" mean, exactly?

A 1989 article in Fortune defined empty suit executives as

Much form, style, and dress-for-success dash; little substance, skill,
or managerial accomplishment....They are not risk takers. To the
contrary, their indecisiveness can make a corporate hierarchy even more
sluggish

A person ineffective or incompetent in his/her position of authority.
Derived from unfavorable observations that ineffective professionals
are memorable only for what they wear and not what they accomplish at
the workplace.

The
true empty suit, which conjures up the image of a business suit of
clothing without a person, really doesn’t know what he or she is doing.
He or she is ineffectual, perhaps a phony, and is about as relevant or
helpful as a suit hanging on a rack. To call someone an empty suit
implies that you think (he is) a complete waste of time (and)
undeserving of our attention. There is some suggestion in Greek
mythology, credited to the Classical Greek playwright Euripides, that
Helen, married to Menelaus and stolen by Paris, was actually
sequestered on an island by Apollo. Paris actually stole an empty image
or empty tunic of Helen, rather than the real woman. Thus the idea of
someone being phony, fake or not really there.

The
invective threshold for "empty suit" then ought to be high -- someone
with no substance whatsoever who is manifestly unqualified for the job
he or she holds and is merely showing up and occupying space.

The use of "empty suit" further poisons an already poisonous debate. It's time to hang it up.

Posted at 08:55:00 PM

Comments

You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.

I know this will set you off, but ---

ZORN REPLY -- Ding! You are correct, sir! I removed the rest of your comment.

EZ wrote:
"no one who is actually vapid, dumb or ineffectual makes it to that level in American politics, and saying so suggests a childlike weakness in one's own position"

Aren't you begging the question with respect to his qualifications? You seem to suggest that he is qualified to be president because only qualified people run for president. Then you add an insult to boot.
This may set you off, but...I think democrats and republicans alike will read those definitions and at the very least be given pause.

ZORN REPLY -- First, you need to look up what "begging the question" means. Hint: It does not mean "avoiding the question" or "actually posing the question."
Second, you miss my contention. It's perfectly possible to argue that someone doesn't have what it takes to be president in any number of areas without also arguing that the person is an ineffectual nitwit. For instance I never thought George W. Bush had the intellectual curiosity, heft or depth to guide the country wisely, but I never called him stupid, retarded, chimp-like or like that. Nor today would I call him an empty suit even though a review of the definition of the term and the people it's been used suggests he might belong to the ES club.

You're right, Eric. I confess I've used that one, but won't anymore. If this primary campaign has proven anything, it's that Obama's no empty suit, no Sir. That suit came fully-lined with money. He's a dilettante, or do you have a problem with that one, too?

ZORN REPLY -- Actually, I don't have a problem in general with "dilettante" as a term of criticism as long as you can back it up....which I don't see how you can. He's a superficial dabbler? Someone with a casual yet pretentious interest in politics (here)?
Instead of trying to think up sweeping terms of dismissal and disregard, why not couch those terms within a real argument? Of course, that's assuming against any real evidence that you have some desire to be taken seriously..

Unrelated to the empty suit argument, I believe Roy did use the phrase "begging the question" correctly here. He was accusing you of using circular logic to assert BOB's qualifications for office, saying that unqualified people do not get to the level of presidential nominee, therefore all presidential nominees must be qualified to be president. I did not read his comment as referring to the asking or avoidance of a particular question.

ZORN REPLY -- If that's what he was trying to say I missed it because to read it that way you have to completely misunderstand what I wrote. I did not say that anyone who becomes a serious candidate for the U.S. Presidency is automatically qualified to be the president...that would be somewhat circular. There's big difference between saying you think someone is underqualfied or unqualified (difference?) for a job they aspire to -- a fair argument to make, certainly -- and saying he or she is an "empty suit."
You, for instance, might not yet be qualified in the estimation of your bosses or you peers for a promotion you'd like to get. That wouldn't make you an "empty suit." And you'd probably be pretty angry at someone who said so; you'd probably consider it a pretty ugly thing to say. You'd probably respond, "Hey, rank my qualifications all you want, but don't just simply trash me."
Right?

You asked for it, Eric. I suggested earlier that Obama had been mistaken in taking a winter vacation to the Virgin Islands in the middle of an amateurish, if well-funded, campaign for the presidency. Not his first mistake, but a most telling slip. A campaign which will, and must, crush the hopes of millions of Democratic primary voters in order to secure the nomination, and bring defeat certain to his party in the General Election in November. There-by squandering hundreds of millions of dollars, and the best opportunity the Democrats have had in a generation to regain the White House. I'll even throw in an historical comparison to the late Adlai Stephenson, with the hope of making my argument simple, clear and concise. He's a dilettante, in a word, a trifler...Your mother should know.

ZORN REPLY -- Amateurish campaign? It hasn't been perfect but what people who actually, you know, follow the news and all are saying with almost one voice is that Obama has run a surprisingly well organized, disciplined, on-message campaign and that HRC's campaign has been so poorly run that it causes us to wonder if her competence argument has merit.
He took a two-day vacation and you think he looks like an arrogant rich guy compared to the woman whose family made more than $100 million in the last few years and the man who, with his ultra-wealthy wife, owns several homes including a $4.6 million residence in Arizona? Right.
Do you know what dilettante means, Matt?

EZ: "no one who is actually vapid, dumb or ineffectual makes it to that level in American politics"

What about our Governor? I am not saying this just as invective; I really do wonder to what extent he is capable of complex analysis. And he seems to be politically deaf.

Or what about our Stroger? (albeit he is not at "that" level of American politics)

In both cases, they were leapfrogged into roles they perhaps did not merit based on powerful family ties. Empty suit is an appropriate way, I think, to communicate a perceived lack of intelligence, analytic, or political skills necessary to excel in the role they have been placed.

Matzger: "He's a dilettante, or do you have a problem with that one, too?"

No. Perhaps you can argue he is out of touch with the common man (which, I am guessing your Stevenson allusion is getting at), but he is no dilettante - and nothing you've said has suggested otherwise. An expensive vacation is completely uncorrelated with being a dilettante.

As you must know, Obama chose to study law. Once he made that decision, he graduate near the top of the class at Harvard. That is not dilettante behavior. It is the behavior of a smart, focused, determined person.

Then, as you must know, Obama eschewed high paying law firm job opportunities to go work as an organizer on the South Side. (He taught at U of Chicago Law school to make ends meet.) You might argue this was opportunistic. You might argue this was an elaborate plan to create a grounded everyman persona. But, there is nothing in those choices that smells the least like dilettantism (if that is a word.)

He got into politics on the ground floor (in the hood, so to speak) and worked his way up spending years in the State Legislature before getting his breakthrough to go to Washington. That is long term focused dues paying. There is nothing about this that sounds like a dilettante.

So, where's your beef Metzger? What is the grounding for your argument?

What's clear by now is that perception is reality, and perception in politics is shaped by catchy sloganeering and one-size-fits-all generalizations parroted ad nauseam by a 24/7 infotainment media culture that has lots and lots of empty space to fill.

Surfing through political message boards online, the overarching theme is not one of discourse and discussion, but rather of insult slinging and adherence to media-driven simplifications of the candidates, which transforms them from people with complex personalities into inhuman one-dimensional symbols.

In a culture so obsessed with brevity and convenience, it's not shocking that depth of analysis is completely forsaken for drive-thru scrutiny framed in terms of grotesquely watered-down bromides. Unsurprisingly, what now passes for political discourse is little more than monkeys flinging their own feces at each other. He's an empty suit, she's a pandering shill, McCain's a delusional old war hawk. Discussion devolves into variations of defending your horse against these cliche attacks, or levying them against the enemy camp.

That's not to say personality should be entirely disregarded in the course of debate - people who want to keep it wholly confined to the issues also miss the point. Policies are wonderful, but a candidate has to have the political savvy to pull them off, and personality has a lot to do with that. But the more interesting side of the debate is not what the candidate's personalities are, but how they either aid or detract from the candidate's stated policy goals and the chance they will ever be enacted.

Sadly, the discussion never reaches that level, and it doesn't show any signs of reversing in the near future. The media should take the lead and raise the level of discourse, but they'd risk turning off millions of viewers that show up for the steel cage matches of idiocy (like the Donna Brazile/Paul Begala imbroglio the other day).

Ironically, it all comes back to a cliche - we'll get the President we deserve.

I agree that Roy misconstrued or at least vastly simplified your argument, Eric. I also agree with your post here on the insult "empty suit." I just wanted to point out the the phrase "begging the question" was used correctly in this instance, as it has been a point of confusion and discussion on this blog and elsewhere.

This actually isn't about Obama. The issues with using insults such as 'empty suit' is the attempt to subvert democracy.
The idea behind it is that if the public can be convinced that all politicians are worthless, crooks, sleazy, "one's as bad as the other", "they're all alike", people will lose interest in politics, be apathetic about political issues, ignore their role as watchdogs, and not bother to be informed.
Will they vote? Maybe, maybe not. If they do, some will vote for or against parties which have totally changed over the years, but they haven't noticed. Some will vote based on non-governmental issues (which they'll call 'character' or 'people like us'). Some will stay home.
Who's happy with this state of affairs? Those who enrich themselves using politics and government, whether through money or power, knowing they've effectively transformed the government of the people, by the people, for the people into something quite different.
NO ONE should put up with name-calling as the beginning and end of political discussions. It's your country, it's your government, they're your politicians, and it's YOUR responsibility to be involved.
You have a house, you take care of it so it doesn't fall apart. You have kids, you take care of them and raise them to be responsible adults. You have a government - TAKE CARE OF IT. It's the only one you've got.

Danny, you big dummy. Choosing the law, attending Harvard and doing well at it, but eschewing all those high paying corporate jobs to learn how the other half live? Hey, that's what dilettantes do, Danny. Come on, he's slumming, he's got a guilty conscience like all the rest, and the usual sick desire to see his name on a million billboards at once covering every vacant lot down in the horrible hood. The ghetto, which isn't where he lives, but Jane Byrne did once. Spare me...And then by exploiting his own race he wins the powerful, but low-paying government job? Kismet? No way.
See Eric, I know what dilettante means. Notice I even used it in a sentence that did not contain the word, "grasping" in it anywhere.

ZORN REPLY--DO you know what "tendentious troll" means? I can use it in a sentence, if you'd like.

Most of the time it's a cheap shot to point out another person's spelling or grammatical errors during the course of an argument, but it was kind of funny to see Matt Mezger, in the midst of displaying his intellectual heft by tossing around words like "dilettante" and "trifler," hit us right between the eyes with a reference to "Adlai Stephenson."
Come on, Mezger, take off the clown nose, go back to your own blog and your obsession with the 60-year-old murder case, and quit wasting people's time with your attention-seeking twaddle. You'll never be Stosh, no matter how hard you try.

ZORN REPLY -- Yes, it is unfair because I often, when I have the time, go through posts and fix the errors like that during the posting process, so just because person A has a typo or a braino and person B has clean copy on the site doesn't mean person B's comment necessarily came through cleaner than person A's.
I have to say, though, that I don't quite "get" Mezger's worldview. It seems mainly contrarian, like the Argument Clinic sketch on Monty Python.
I

Eric: I'm honored at being the guy who started this "empty suit" ruckus! I believe you responded by calling me a bigot. Typical left winger. If one doesn't imbibe on the Obama kool-aid it's because they can't handle Obama's race. I'd say calling me a bigot is WAY more over the top than me calling Obama an empty suit. Also your other rebuttal was quite lame. I suppose journalists are impressed by fellow word warriors like lawyers but compared to folks who excel at math and science I find legal studies to be pretty low brow stuff. It takes more brains to work most trades than to file a brief.
I refer to Obama as an empty suit not because of his race or chosen profession but because he's accomplished NOTHING in the way of public service. The South Side is a war zone, Springfield a laughing stock and yet Obamamania marches on without reason. If Obama is such a gifted thinker/orator then why did he scale back his debate schedule with Keyes from the original six down to four?
As a congressional candidate in 2004 (I ran against Obamas fellow Trotskyite Jan Schakowsky) I saw more Obama than necessary. Obama is less about "change" than he is about retro Great Society. Is change the over taxing of folks and then throwing money at ineffectual problems? Does Obama favor choice in schools? Of course not. Why offer "change" to kids locked up in dangerous, under performing institutions .Does Obama have a solution to “change” the way emerging economies increasingly consume energy? Obama is an intellectual fraud.
Obama though is less an empty suit than those who support him. Vapid, delusional and at worst anti-American are the characteristics of his supporters.

ZORN REPLY -- Pretty clearly, Kurt, your ideological differences with Obama inspire you to fits of name calling. People who don't agree with you have accomplished nothing and are frauds, empty suits and Trotskyites, even! Thanks for making me feel even better about calling you out.

Many thanks to people who pointed out that I was in fact using the expression "begging the question" correctly. I suppose if we allow for the hair splitting distinction between "unqualified" and "empty suit" we can both be right.

I never took the expression "empty suit" to be that big of an insult. The Bnet definition is closest to my feelings: an empty suit is a go-with-the-flow dime-a-dozen company man. The incompetence angle is new to me.

I've been a regular reader and a somewhat regular poster on your blog for sometime now, and I don't ever remember the blog being as uncivil as it seems to have become in the coverage of this presidential primary season. And Eric, I think you are greatly at fault.
Over ostensibly more incendiary issues (abortion, death penalty, etc.) you stake out your personal position, but generally seem to keep your personal position from stifling the debate running in the blog.
But here, in your fevering support for Obama, you seem to have lost all journalistic perspective. You are like the reporter who went out to cover a story about a war, got caught up in the fighting, picked up a gun and started shooting. Have you ever banned anyone from your blog before this? Have you ever stifled bloggers comments to such an extent before, just because they were out of sync with your personal view? Your rebukes of anyone saying anything negative about Obama have become especially biting. I opened up this item, hoping that the teasing few first lines would reveal your mea culpa for having become so attacking in your responses to bloggers on the innocuous use of “empty suit”. I was disappointed to read instead your “I am right” pronouncement.
I know this blog ain't a democracy, but I hesitate to post anything challenging your devotion to Obama anymore, out of fear of being vilified for my position, let alone my syntax, spelling, or punctuation. And please don't dismiss this post as me being too sensitive for the blogging world, as you did once before. I found that incredibly funny, especially because my wife keeps telling me I have become the most insensitive SOB she knows (and she’s a Clinton supporter).

ZORN REPLY -- Actually, this blog is a model of civility compared to most of the less mediated bi-partisan blogs out there. And part of the reason is that I'm out here as the moderator calling baloney on people who try to peddle baloney.
For instance, I'm calling baloney right now on your petulant accusation that I stifle dissent. -- literally tens of thousands of comments left here have expressed views different from my own and I continue to post such views here all the time. The fact that I finally stuffed the digital sock in the mouth of the most relentlessly disagreeable and unreasonable and ad hominem of the commenters in no way stifles dissent; it's simply an effort to keep these conversations from descending still further.
This presidential primary race is by far the most sustained issue that's dominated this blog since it started taking comments a few years ago and so it's perhaps raised temperatures over time.
Challenging someone's viewpoint is not an attempt to stifle it. And it's simply false to say that I rebuke anyone saying anything negative about Obama. I myself have said negative things about Obama.
I enjoy good policy discussions, campaign analysis, resume comparisons and so on.
But when readers leave false, sweeping statements, such as the statements you've made about me above or simply resort to name-calling pronoucments, then, yeah, I'll usually challenge them.
The worthwhile commenters take up the challenge, reveal a curious and open mind and civil style, and we go forward.
One final thing -- I don't believe I've ever vilified anyone for spelling, syntax or punctuation. Quite the opposite, when I have time I try to fix typos and spelling errors and clarify punctuation.

Eric, you say: "I understand frustration and anger, but let's be honest -- no one who is actually vapid, dumb or ineffectual makes it to that level in American politics, and saying so suggests a childlike weakness in one's own position -- a milder version of comparing a politician you don't like to the mentally defective character Chauncey the Gardener or, extremely, to Hitler."

Minor point, but in the priceless movie, "Being There" with Peter Sellers, the character was Chance the gardener," not "Chauncey the Gardener," and whom national leaders mistakenly called "Chauncey Gardiner." Certainly one of the best movies of all time. And an apt illustration of the term, "empty suit," in that case a very expensive suit. Any comparison to a present day politician would be strictly coincidental.

ZORN REPLY -- Right, I should have remembered that from the last time this topic came up. I fixed it above.

Several years ago, I was a sysop in a Compuserve political forum. The rules there were that people were given a wide latitude to say what they wanted as long as they stuck to issues. However members were strictly forbidden from attacking one another. For example, if a member were to say "George Bush is an idiot," although that would be not very intelligent or informative, it would be allowable. However, if another member replied, "John Smith who called Bush an idiot is a moron," that message would NOT be allowed because it was a personal attack on another member. (Although we would allow him to say "The message that called Bush an idiot was stupid.") We used the standard that public figures were fair game for attack but forum members were not. Messages were fair game for attack but not the member who sent the message.

The rules here seem to be quite different. I have seen personal attacks against other members and taunting of other members and these seem to be allowed. On the other hand, I have seen people banned simply for insulting Barack Obama. I have seen people encouraged to personally attack a member who was banned and could no longer defend himself. This is something we definitely would not have allowed in my forum at Compuserve.
It is going to take a while to learn the rules in this blog.

ZORN REPLY -- I don't recall anyone encouraging anyone to attack someone who can't come back on to defend himself, but things do slip through.
I don't worry a whole hell of a lot about it, though, since no one, not even I, knows who, say, "LittleBoss" is, so that seems like less of a problem than if someone is using their real name.
I try not to let ANY pure name calling or ad hominem attacks onto this blog -- an believe me, it's hard and you have no idea what I've edited out. When people write "eorge Bush is an idiot!" I don't usually let that through unless it's the flourish on an argument that shows why we should think so. Ditto the sexist trash people have tried to post here about Hillary Clinton or the agist claptrap about McCain and so on. It just isn't the least bit interesting or productive, which is the standard I try to maintain here.
I also try to maintain a standard for accuracy, which is why ultimately I've banned people for repeatedly misstating the facts.
For instance, Jimmy G, no one has been banned here for criticizing Barack Obama, but if they are "simply insulting" him or anyone else, yeah, they're gone and I'm happy to ban them. The idea ain't hard to figure out and the rules ain't hard to grasp.
If you or anyone else wants to a place to "simply insult" people, you've come to wrong place and I'll bid you good day.

The emoty suit charge against Obama is a particularly inane one. Presumably a large part of the charge is that any success that the empty suit has is because he fills some necessary role, and if he were not there someone in a similar suit would have been picked in his place. (In this connection think of a Dan Quayle who seems to have been picked to be VP more because Bush thought he filled a niche than because of any particular affinity between the two. My suspicion is that if Dan Quayle was not there to be picked, someone Dan Quaylish would have been picked. Someone young with a low profile whose primary feature was that noone would be inclined to vote against a ticket just because he was on it).

Obama is about as far from that as one can imagine. Had Obama not chosen to run, on what seemed a long shot campaign at the time, there would not be anyone like him in the race. While it is true that Axelrod has outmaneuvered his rivals at every stage of this race, it seems silly that he could have done this with any black Senator he chose to run.

That said, there is a point of language in the above post that I think is wrong. In general to use a phrase like "empty suit" or anything else, what is required is not that someone meets the threshold of actually being what that phrase says, but rather the weaker notion that one is significantly enough in that direction from where one would normally expect in order to be worthy of comment.

To take just one example, we call someone altruistic not if they exclusively think of other people while doing nothing for themselves. Rather someone counts as altruistic if they do things for other people significantly more than the norm. And similarly in the other direction for calling someone selfish. That does not require that one never think of others, but that one thinks of others significantly less than the norm.

Given that language works this way, I can see where there could be useful accusations of a politician as an empty suit. The fact that "no one who is actually vapid, dumb or ineffectual makes it to that level in American politics" does not so much rule out the use of such expressions as it says something about the bar needed to be exceptional in that direction.

This is, of course, not to say that actual usage of the phrase is not usually empty. It is hard to see how Kurt Eckhardt could have done more to make Zorn's case that his usage was vacuous than he did in the rejoinder above in which he basically called everyone who disagrees with him an empty suit. (Since calling someone an empty suit is supposed to suggets something exceptional about them, it doesn't work to call everyone who disagrees with one an empty suit. That just makes one look like an idiot).

And there do seem to be some accusations which are legitimately out of bounds, not because if they were taken to be literally true they would be nonsense. But rather because there is some history behind the insult that is being used rather than its actual content. Calling someone "fascist" would seem to be the clearest example of this. Although the use of certain racial slurs also fits here.

I don't think that "empty suit" has that history though. It seems like the kind of charge that people who make should have to back up in some way. But I don't think it is an expression that is automatically out of bounds in a political discussion. It is meant to capture something about a politician. It just happens to be something which does not even vaguely apply in the case of Obama. In fact it is hard to think of anyone in recent political history for whom the particular man in the suit has been more important than the suit.

I. Whether one says he/she lacks the experience to be President or simply uses shorthand and calls him/her and empty suit, it’s the same thing. Let’s not get hung up by that.

II. Making the claim that Obama is an “intelligent, well-educated man” does not refute the argument that he is not qualified for the job. There are thousands of “intelligent, well-educated” speechmakers on campus and in newsrooms who lack the qualification to be President. Among the qualifications are experience with, and taking responsibility for, working with and against highly qualified and powerful people in his Administration, in Congress, in our military and in other governments around the world. Obama and Clinton come up far short, especially when compared to McCain.

III. It's curious that you attempt to disqualify the “empty suit - lack of qualifications” argument just when A) the Democrats are most vulnerable to it, and B) the Democrats have already succeeded in pounding down W’s unfavorable rating with seven years of dunce and worse name-calling.

IV. Maybe you should write a column that attempts to discredit the “too old for the job” argument. McCain has his shortcomings and vulnerabilities but he is vigorous.

ZORN REPLIES--
I.-- You can't simply re-define a term, anymore than I can redefine "dunce" as meaning "not up to the job as U.S. President" when I want to talk about Bush. It's simply inflammatory.

II. I agree with the premise of this point and would never gainsay the idea that the "just because X is true therefore candidate Y (is/is not) qualified for the office he/she is seeking" is often wholly bogus. Furthermore, we don't have a tendency to elect the person with the longest resume who enters the presidential race to the White House.

III. I don't think the Democrats are most vulnerable to this attack NOW...in fact we're in a lull of vulnerability at this point.

IV. I don't make the age argument against McCain. I think a person with a clean bill of health can and should be able to demonstrate his/her vigor and that voters ought not take age into account.

I agree that calling Obama an "empty suit" is an unsuitable insult for all the reasons that you state above. I think that your readers who used that term have picked up on something about Obama that makes them uncomfortable and they are calling it the wrong thing. Obama has campaigned on his biography and his ability to inspire. Nothing wrong with that. His biography appeals to blacks and white intellectuals while his "yes we can"-type speeches appeal to the "youth vote." These are important constituencies that he had to nail down, and he did. I think that his problems with working class whites, Jews, and hispanics come from the perception that he isn't talking about issues that are important to them. These are groups who by and large don't care that much about his biography and are less likely to be inspired by his hope and change message; they want to hear about issues that affect them. Again, I'm only talking about perception here. I know that you can go to his website or access certain speeches where he goes into all kinds of detail about particular issues. The reality is that most people won't do that and they will rely on soundbites provided by the media. The "empty suit" perception could stem from listening to those speeches and hearing what sounds like empty rhetoric. If I were advising Obama, I would tell him to focus on a couple of issues (e.g., health care, education) and really take ownership of them. If he presents them in the right way, the media will be forced to cover it and the people will start to pay attention to his ideas rather than his skin color. In my opinion, Obama doesn't have the common touch of a Reagan, Clinton or George W. Bush. That's not necessarily fatal but he better work on not sounding like a Dukakis, Gore, George H.W. Bush, or John Kerry. In other words, Obama has to work on not coming across as too vague or as an elitist. He has to force the media to cover his policy points. How does he do that? By making policy speeches that appeal to the average American who is not a member of the Harvard faculty. I think he's capable of doing that and his supporters should be urging him to go that direction rather than complaining that many voters are too lazy, ignorant, etc. to understand that he's more than an "empty suit" (however valid that complaint may be).

ZORN REPLY -- Again, see, Greg has made a good point and didn't once resort to insulting generalizations about ANYONE. I think it's a perfectly fair, perfectly reasonable thing to challenge and question Obama on his credentials and accomplishments and to analyze his campaign style. It's also fair to conclude, if you do, that Obama doesn't have the sort of record you think a U.S. president ought to have whether in depth or breadth or ideology. Those are good, bracing conversations.
I simply have lost my patience with people who in saying "He hasn't done ANYTHING!!!!!" and "All he does is give good speeches!!!!!" then, when challenged, demand that others do their homework..."What has he DONE?????" "What are his plans?????"
I look out for the readers here -- my rough estimate is that fewer than 10 percent t of the readers ever leave comments -- and I'm guessing they don't have time or patience for that kind of noise any more than I do.
They're probably even bored by now with my defense of defending them.

OK, empty suit and unqualified are two different things. Even though empty suit is not inflammatory, if you’d prefer a more formal term we can say unserious. And Obama is not unserious, but I would still say he is inexperienced and unqualified.
If you do a Google search on “empty suit” and “unqualified,” you’ll find many documents, almost all related to Obama. Many people believe that, and in my opinion we can now say that they’re wrong and right, respectively.
Since I clarified my statement on Obama’s shortcomings, I can’t tell what you mean by saying that you “don't think the Democrats are most vulnerable to this attack NOW...in fact we're in a lull of vulnerability at this point.” If you mean that Obama and Clinton are not empty suits because they are serious, well OK. But the most common criticism in this area is that they both lack experience.
And I’ve heard their answers. They do have some experience and some qualifications, so in a sophomoric sense, they’ve countered the argument. Problem is, they lack the necessary experience and qualifications.
Getting back to your thesis: If a candidate is an empty suit, let’s be polite and call him/her unserious. But if the candidate(s) lack experience and qualifications, let’s do point it out even if they are also serious.

ZORN REPLY -- I think you acknowledge that "unserious" is a peculiar term. Certainly one that doesn't apply here.
Clearly, also, the question of whether a given person is "qualified" to be president (beyond the obvious legal qualifications,which are minimal) is a fairly subjective thing....
Does a lawyer with eight years in the Illinois legislature and just a couple of years on Capitol Hill have the necessary experience to be an effective president of the United States?
Most historians would agree that Abraham Lincoln did pretty well.
My point about timing is that Obama has all but clinched the nomination and there are many, many months until November; it's not a burning question at this moment. Obama and McCain will have many opportunities between now and then to argue the experience question, which is seldom decisive. We've elected presidents with no experience in Washington and no experience in government; we've rejected for president candidats with really lengthy resumes.
You're welcome to offer your judgments on Obama's career and his resume, but when we elect a president we look for vision, leadership style, judgment, character and so on. And we contrast those with the vision, leadership style etc. of the opponents. There's really no need, in such a debate or in making such comparisons, to toss around broadly insulting terms. No need and no point, though I do note that low-information voters have a habit of falling for the tactic.

In spite of your admonition, we can be sure that surrogate and autonomous promoters of both McCain and Obama will hurl insults. Both principals have denounced that style, but both have issued sharp criticisms of the other’s qualifications and policies, and both have or will complain that the other went negative.

That fact that most historians would agree that Abraham Lincoln did “pretty well” may say more about the historians that it does about Lincoln. Why is it that GWB, who is only trying to liberate millions of Iraqi’s and “killed” thousands in the process, gets tarred with the insult: “Bush lied and people died,” whereas Lincoln, who “killed” hundreds of thousands while liberating the slaves is in the Pantheon of Presidents? If WJC or Carter had been President when Fort Sumter was bombarded, might they have negotiated, delayed, conceded or appeased, and somehow kicked the can down the road until a time when a new generation of people would end slavery peaceably? They wouldn’t get the glory but they would have spared the country the suffering and death. And yes I know, that generation of slaves, just like the prior generations of slaves, would languish under Lincoln and his predecessors, none of whom get much criticism for not freeing them when they had their chance.

Add up the cost in lives and treasure of the Civil War as a percent of our population and of GDP and compare that to the current conflict. Bush is blamed for entering a war without an exit strategy, when his exit strategy is to win regardless of the cost. That sounds a lot like Lincoln’s Civil War strategy.

Carter still has his backers, even though he was one of the worst presidents ever, based on his Misery Index … right up there with FDR ... so I’m not surprised that Obama has his backers, especially among journalists and historians. It’s funny that for 20th and 21st century historians, Democrat presidents are not downgraded as much for their years of inaction or strife. For them, it’s seen as a virtue, either to prevaricate vis-à-vis the terrorists (ala’ Carter or Clinton) or to annihilate Dresden or Hiroshima (ala FDR or Truman). They can’t lose for winning.

Don’t today’s historians realize that Lincoln is in the same party as GWB? I believe a few have begun the process of rewriting Lincoln's history, even as they’re writing first drafts of Obama’s glorious history.

ZORN REPLY -- There's some revisionism on Carter, too, to his benefit. How much can one plausibly attribute "Misery Index" scores to acts by a president of the United States?

About "Change of Subject."

"Change of Subject" by Chicago Tribune op-ed columnist Eric Zorn contains observations, reports, tips, referrals and tirades, though not necessarily in that order. Links will tend to expire, so seize the day. For an archive of Zorn's latest Tribune columns click here. An explanation of the title of this blog is here. If you have other questions, suggestions or comments, send e-mail to ericzorn at gmail.com.
More about Eric Zorn

Contributing editor Jessica Reynolds is a 2012 graduate of Loyola University Chicago and is the coordinator of the Tribune's editorial board. She can be reached at jreynolds at tribune.com.